Travel Trends – Impact of Destination Marketers, Silent Clickers & Social Media

The Role & Impact of Destination Marketers – Just in time for your summer reading, PhoCusWright has released a report examining the role and impact of DMOs.   Described as one of the largest reports on the subject, the study, includes a major consumer study into travelers’ use of DMO resources, a survey of 176 Destination Marketing professionals, 50 in-depth interviews with DMO CEOs/senior marketing staff and an analysis with Compete Inc. into online behavior on 15 benchmark DMO Web sites (at the time of this writing, we’re not able to discern which sites were picked or the criteria used to pick them).  Best practice recommendations covered includes:

• Perennial favorite…how influential are DMOs are in the decision-making process of U.S. travelers?
• When do users contact DMOs in their travel planning and booking process? (The report finds that DMO Web sites and other resources reach an approximately equal proportion of travelers who are still planning and deciding vs. those who have already booked)
• Content – Consumer expectations of DMO sites and their need for “for in-depth, current and complete information on everything from events to hotels, special offers to restaurants.”

http://www.milesmedia.com

Measuring the Impact of Silent Clicks – Yep, we’re still obsessed with engagement and how to measure the effectiveness of digital campaigns; while we’ve written in the past about who clicks on banners, this time we are intrigued by a new Online Publisher’s Association (OPA) report that examines the value of the “Silent Click”, i.e. the impact of branding and online campaigns beyond the click.  While it can be easy to dismiss this as an attempt by the industry to protect a dwindling asset, doing so however  would just be a disservice to a study that examined the visitor behavior across 200 of the most trafficked sites.   Moreover, the results appear to support other similar studies and reflects our own experience running display campaigns, namely, don’t judge a campaign by its clicks.    According to the study, of those visitors who were exposed to display advertising:

• One in five conduct related searches and one in three visit the brands’ sites
• Users spent over 50% more time than the average visitor to these sites and consumed more pages
• Users spent about 10% more money online overall, and significantly more on product categories related to the advertised brands

The full report will be available on Thursday, June 25th at http://www.online-publishers.org

Go See DMO Social Media Research – A few months ago, we encouraged you to participate in a survey conducted by our colleagues at GoSeeTell about the current state of the industry and use of social media by DMOs. The results of the survey were just released and is available from our friends at MilesMedia. Some key findings include:

• The majority of DMOs are using Facebook and Twitter to engage with travelers and state that Twitter has provided them with the most success; conversely, Flickr & YouTube were cited by most as their favorite photo/video tools respectively (no surprises here)

• Building awareness and engaging with consumers are the top two goals for using social media; DMOs reportedly spend 1-5 hours specifically on social media

• Philadelphia, Chicago, Oregon, Columbus, Portland, Arizona and Pennsylvania were cited by our peers as destinations using social media most effectively (We’re honored to be named in that company)

• In a possible sign of the next wave of DMO site evolution, it is notewothy that the overwhelming majority of respondents (75%) think that social media should be integrated to their main site

The full GoSeeTell study is available for download at www.MilesMedia.com

Travel Trends – Google Maps, Twitter, Orlando, Shoofly Pie

Google Maps Hits The Trail – Google is taking it’s popular ‘Street View’ feature off-road and onto the nation’s expansive system of biking and hiking trails.  Which, in a location like Denver, is going to take them a while.

From the article:

Now Google Maps is expanding to biking and hiking trails. A Google employee on a tricycle rides around to snap the same wide-area views.

“Much of the world is inaccessible to the car,” says Daniel Ratner, a Google senior engineer who designed the trike. “We want to get access to places people find important.”

Clearly, for destinations with scenic and popular trails…California, Oregon, Colorado, etc…the introduction of a Trail View feature on some of these routes will help further promote the area to potential visitors.  Although, I am not sure walking a trail via your computer is the same as being there.
http://www.usatoday.com/

Twitter Begins To Roll Out The ‘What’s Next’ – Earlier today Twitter (you remember them, right?) added a ‘Verified’ feature to several key profiles, think celebrities, well-known writers, organizations.  The new ‘Verified’ icon appears at the top of the user’s profile and allows potential friends to verify that they really are following @oprah.  But, before you start emailing Twitter about adding the verified stamp to your organizations account, you should know that Twitter is simply beta testing the feature with a few key profiles…read, celebrities.  However, this is the first step in Twitter’s long rumored plan to create structured categories and accounts for users.  Trust us, the ‘verified business’ account is not far behind.
http://twitter.com/

Orlando Launches a New Promo…Sort Of – Ah, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  The Orlando CVB has recently launched a new campaign entitled ’67 Days of Smiles’ in which the tourist capital of the world is looking for a couple to ‘experience everything from roller coaster riding to hang gliding, swimming with dolphins, golfing, shopping, spa-ing, gator wrestling, museum exploring, theatre-going and more.‘  Kudos to Orlando for starting this campaign, at the very least they should (hopefully) receive a good amount of UGC for future use.  But something in the promo seems very familiar.
http://www.orlandoinfo.com/67days/

Pennsylvania Takes You on a Journey Across the Keystone State – In true PA / Red Tettemer fashion, the Keystone State has launched another travel campaign that pushes the boundaries of what most think of as a tourism marketing promotion.  I would try to describe it to you, but it is really easier if you watch an episode or two.

From the article:

The 26-minute, four-episode film series features a twenty-something man who follows his heart across Pennsylvania in search of his long-lost, pre-adolescent love, a waitress named Meg who once served him a memorable slice of Shoofly Pie.

Fun, unique, quirky, with some decent, promo-specific music (yeah, they wrote music for the videos) the campaign certainly stands apart from any other tourism promo you will see this summer.  Equally important, the writing and story behind the shorts is interesting…clearly not the first time this agency has produced short video content, and it shows.  While writing a script seems easy, it is clear that experience is needed to produce a quality story such as this one.  Now, will anyone watch?
http://www.mediapost.com/

Travel Trends – Twares, Women Heart Blogs, There’s More to Maine, Banner Ads, South Carolina v. Columbus

Enough! Enough with all the new twords!

The Good, Bad & Ugly of Twares – Sweet Lincoln’s mullet. Before we go much further, can we put out an official call to the travel industry to stop making up words.  Forget society in general, let’s just start with travel.  Really, United, Twares?  (Twitter + Fares = Twares) Please, Twitter is confusing enough to explain to @oprah, let alone with new Twords popping up all the time.

However, kudos to United for launching the aforementioned (we are not using the word) Twitter fares promotion on Twitter.  As we spoke about earlier in the week (How the Travel Industry Should Use Twitter), how can organizations take advantage of the infrastructure that Twitter has created?

A perfect comparison is the Southwest Ding Desktop app…granted, that was created several years ago, before the miracle that is Twitter came into being…instead of creating an app, promoting it and trying to build an audience for the app via advertising, United used Twitter and it’s community, reach, etc. to essentially run a similar promo.  In this case, with less investment (see $0), less advertising and less risk.  A brilliant use of an existing technology…instead of reinventing the wheel.
http://www.united.com/

Women Heart Blogs – A helpful study on how women use blogs.

From the article:

According to The 2009 Women in Social Media Study by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners, 64% of women are nearly twice as likely to use blogs than social networking sites as a source of information, 43% for advice and recommendations and 55% for opinion-sharing, while they 75% are 50 percent more likely to turn to social networking sites as a means of keeping in touch with friends and family.

Of the 42 million women engaged in social media weekly:

• 55% of women participate in some form of blogging activity
• 75% participate in social networks such as Facebook or MySpace
• 20% use Twitter
• 45% of survey respondents decided to purchase an item after reading about it on a blog

http://www.mediapost.com/

There’s More to Maine – From our friends in the far northeast, a new campaign from Visit Maine.  Typically, we don’t cover traditional campaign launches, but the connection between the print and website, visitmaine.com,  is quite refined.  Clean, uncluttered and showing the best of Maine…well, I assume the best of Maine, never been there…the homepage is a nice example of directing visitors to the key sections of the site.  The primary callouts acknowledge what the traveling public is looking for in a Maine vacation…Summertime, Cusine (lobster), Lighthouses and Fishing…honestly, what else is there?  Give the visitor what they want and Maine does.
http://www.visitmaine.com/

Banner Ads Are Relevant! – Interesting research that shows the display ad is not quite dead after all.

From the article:

When Internet users were surveyed to find out what actions they took when viewing a display ad on an ad-supported Website, nearly one-third said they clicked on the ad.

http://www.emarketer.com/

South Carolina v. Columbus – From the blog Mengel Musings, a social media smackdown between two friends of the Travel 2.0 blog, South Carolina and Columbus (OH).  The post evaluates the Twitter, Facebook, website and other social media marketing tactics used by the DMO and CVB.  Overall, a nice outsider perspective on the travel industry’s crusade into social media marketing.

From the article:

I’m comparing how two cities are using social media from a travel and tourism perspective. Both have their namesake from Genoa’s most famous navigator and both are home to college football teams I love to hate. Let’s see how Columbus, Ohio and Columbia, South Carolina are cultivating relationships with fans through social media.

If you want to skip right to the finish (spoiler alert!) Columbus wins on an anti-Steve Spurrier technicality.
http://www.amymengel.com/

Anatomy of “The Oregon 150 Challenge” Campaign

The Oregon 150 Challenge

In celebration of Oregon’s 150 years of state-hood, Travel Oregon has launched a special promotion designed to stimulate spring and summer travel by encouraging locals to “rediscover” Oregon as a destination. As part of the “Take the Oregon 150 Challenge,” visitors to Oregon during the sesquicentennnial are called upon to prove their love for the Beaver State by experiencing trips across five categories (Events, Outdoors, Food/Drink, Attractions and You Pick) and prove their have experienced all five categories by uploading a photo or documenting their travels with a brief summary in writing. Travelers completing the challenge will receive an official certificate and email from the governor congragulating them on their work and declaring them a “certified Oregonian”. >>Full Story

Thoughts// A few weeks ago, we brought to you an AdAge story that highlighted how state tourism agencies are recalibrating their tactics to spotlight  value and in-state and/or regional campaigns.    Today, I am honored to spotlight Travel Oregon’s effort to address current economic conditions and build immediate demand for spring and summer travel in Oregon…the Oregon 150 Challenge.

Created with the help of our friends at Wieden+Kennedy, the campaign was originally conceived as an in-state marketing campaign to leverage the year-long celebration of Oregon’s 150th birthday this year; however in response to the economic downturn facing the Oregon tourism industry the effort was significantly ramped up to increase demand and stimulate travel to and within Oregon during our peak season (April-Sept.).

The Oregon 150 Challenge inspires visitors to “take a road trip with a purpose” and encourages them to use Oregon’s 150th birthday as a spectacular excuse to get out and explore their favorite nooks and investigate a new cranny or two, while taking advantage of special deals all over the state.   The crux of the challenge for consumers is to visit just five of the thousands of the beautiful places in Oregon across five categories (Foodie stuff, Outdoors stuff, Attractions, Events and a “You Pick”) to be eligible to win a “Grand Oregon Tour” and to get an “Official Oregonian” certificate signed by the Governor himself!

Elements of the campaign are:

• Inspiration – In-state: The cornerstone of our in-state outreach is a 30-second TV spot, the “love letter” that aims to tug at Oregonians’ heartstrings with its nostalgic and romantic montage to the state;  in-state outreach is also supplemented by radio and online display and search efforts

• Invitation- Regional: For out of state friends in key drive markets of Seattle, Sacramento, and Spokane, we’re using print (pdf), radio and online display (pdf) and search advertising with the key message that spring/summer is the perfect time for a “close-to-home” road trip in Oregon

• The Destination: The ultimate destination for the campaign is  TravelOregon.com/challenge, which leverages the wealth of content across TravelOregon.com into a simple, elegant and visual trip planning tool utilizing Google maps.  Once folks have signed up, they can use the  search tool to start narrowing down their list of destinations or use one of eight suggested trips to complete the challenge.   We’re using ajax to serve up the content within the application and all of the data is “pulled” via XML feeds from the main TravelOregon.com hub and updated nightly.

Challenges: Anytime you have six-weeks to launch a major regional campaign and limited dollars, the challenges can be monumental (to say the least!).

1. Our initial challenge was the content and more specifically the mapping; close to 450 of the 30,000 destinations on our site had absolutely no geo-code information. Yup, mapping tools apparently cannot find descriptive listings such as “CITY NAME Fair Grounds” or “3-miles from the La Grande I-84 exit” – so the initial focus was to manually (painstakingly) update these listings using various online geo-code finders (thanks Bryant & Rhiannon).
2. The second and probably more crucial challenge was the messaging; how do we leverage the state’s birthday to come up with the appropriate messaging and a unified campaign site that serves both Oregonians (wanting to earn their “Oregonian” stripes) and out-of-state folks who are simply looking for travel ideas, trip planning tools and deals?
3. What are we measuring?  The ultimate goal of the campaign is to stimulate demand for travel and maintain or exceed travel bookings to Oregon.  The measurables are thus: spring/summer room nights (compared to ’08 and with competitive set), overall response to advertising, number of consumers registering to  play the contest, number of consumers finishing the contest, overall engagement across the TravelOregon.com platform and finally a measurement of “buzz”.
4. Social Media: We’re continuing to figure out how to make the entire campaign more “sociable”; while time and budget didn’t allow for deeper and more meaningful integration with the Facebook/Twitter API’s, consumers can invite and share their trips with friends/family and write reviews/comments on the places they’ve visited.

Travel Trends – Magazines v. TV v. Web, 300×250 Wins, Email Tracking

For Better or For Worse; Magazines vs. TV vs. The Web – A common question in meetings and board rooms across the land…which is better, TV, print (magazines) or web?  The short answer is that it depends.  The long answer was tested by a McPheters & Company survey.

From the article:

To find the relative effectiveness of ads on television, in magazines, and on the Internet, McPheters & Company used 30-second TV ads, full-page 4-color magazine ads, and Internet banner ads in standard sizes, and employed eye-tracking software to determine if (and how) Internet ads were actually seen by respondents.

Respondents, in 30 minutes with a single medium in a laboratory setting, either watched a choice of sit-coms, read a magazine they selected, or surfed the Internet at will.

At the end of the period they filled out similar surveys that, among other things, asked whether they recalled seeing 4 ads which appeared in the medium they consumed. To establish “over-claiming” they were also asked whether they recalled seeing 4 ads that had not appeared. The adjusted “net” recall resulted in these major findings:

• Within a half hour, magazines effectively delivered more than twice the number of ad impressions as TV and more than 6 times those delivered online
• Though TV doesn’t deliver as many ads per half hour as do magazines, net recall of TV ads was almost twice that of magazine ads
• Magazines had ad recall almost three times that of Internet banner ads
• 85% of Internet ads served appeared on-screen and could be identified by brand
• Among web users, 63% of banner ads were not seen. Respondents’ eyes passed over 37% of the Internet ads and stopped on slightly less than a third
• For Internet ads, almost all net recall could be attributed to ads that were seen
• Internet video ads appeared much less frequently than banner ads, and their exposure skewed heavily towards young men. When they did appear they were twice as likely to be seen as banner ads.

Study results, in combination with information on probability of exposure, found that:

• A full-page, 4-color magazine ad, was determined to have 83% of the value of a 30-second television commercial
• A typical Internet banner ad had 16% of the value of a 30-second television commercial

Rebecca McPheters, CEO of McPheters & Company, noted… (though) sample sizes were not significantly robust to release results for individual ad categories… there are real differences in performance that are worthy of further exploration….”

Of course, do these results really surprise anyone?  If you ranked those mediums in terms of ‘ad avoidance’ or how easy is it for me to ignore the ads, the standings would be: web, magazines and TV.  Resulting in an exact reverse in terms of ad exposure.
http://www.mcpheters.com/

Finding Yields New Angle On Rectangle – Another good, but probably not surprising stats article, this one about the effectiveness of display ad sizes.

From the article:

In a finding that might seem to refute some conventional wisdom about the effectiveness of online advertising formats, the lowly rectangle has been found to be far more engaging than other premium ad formats, including to-of-the-page leaderboards, and page-scraping skyscrapers. The finding, which is the result of an extensive “time spent” analysis of nearly 150 million ads served during 2009 by social media ad optimization firm Lotame, found that 300 x 250 “medium rectangle” ads averaged 13 seconds of “viewing” exposure per user served vs. only 5.4 seconds for leaderboards and 1.9 seconds for skyscrapers.

…that the relative value of rectangles makes sense given their positioning on most Web pages, falling in the middle, where a lot of user time tends to gravitate.

“When you load a skyscraper, it probably doesn’t load fully before a user scrolls down the page. And when users scroll down a page, leaderboards get partly obscured…
http://www.mediapost.com/

E-Mail Marketers Sending in the Dark – The proposition for e-mail marketing in the Web 2.0 world is simple—a low-cost medium with a good return on investment that can be easily tracked. But for many e-mail marketers, tracking is proving tricky. According to eROI, 18% of US e-mail marketers are not tracking the effectiveness of their campaigns.

http://www.emarketer.com/

Travel Trends – Stats, Twitter and Expedia Passport Ads

Three-Quarters of the World’s Messages Sent by Mobile – Your answer for the next time someone asks ‘is this relevant to our targets?’

From the article:

As for developed countries, the PC e-mail remains the most popular message method, but its use is waning.

In Japan, 40 out of 100 e-mails sent are from a mobile device. In North America, 69% of those using e-mail on their mobile phone use it daily, high compared with 43% worldwide.

The trend will increase, TNS says, as smartphones such as the popular iPhone enter the marketplace and gain share.

http://www.emarketer.com/

Survey Says Americans Respond to Online Advertising that Tells a Story – Via our friends at the Research Brief, a great study on what type of advertising American’s say appeals to them (individual results may vary).

From the article:

According to a new national study by Opinion Research Corporation, sponsored by Adfusion, American consumers say articles that include brand information is the type of online advertising they’re most likely to read and act upon, compared to banner ads, pop-up ads, email offers or sponsored links, according to a new survey.

Survey respondents rated their likelihood to read and act upon five types of online advertising: banner ads, pop-up ads, e-mail offers, articles that include brand information, and sponsored search engine links. Respondents said they were “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to read and respond to:

• Articles that include brand information: 51 percent

• Email offers: 47 percent

• Sponsored search engine links: 39 percent

• Banner ads: 25 percent

• Pop-up ads: 13 percent

Additional data included in the survey:

• 87% of survey respondents said they were not very likely or not at all likely to read and act upon pop-up ads
• 56% of households containing three or more people said they are very likely or somewhat likely to read and act upon articles that include brand information
• 62% of households with 13 to 17 year-old children said they are very likely or somewhat likely to read and act upon articles that include brand information
• 52% of college graduates said they conduct Internet searches for products or services they read about in online articles either very frequently or somewhat frequently

http://www.mediapost.com/ (Article)
http://www.aranetonline.com/ (Survey Report .PDF)

Relevant Advertising With Bucks Off Captures Online Consumers – And more ad research, this time from a recent UK study.

From the article:

According to a new survey by Lightspeed Research and the Internet Advertising Bureau, the online audience wants advertisements that are relevant, useful and incentified with money off, but the results reveal that there are key differences by age group when developing appealing advertising executions. Though the study was completed in the UK, the demographics and response should provide a parallel for US Internet advertising and advertisers.

The survey found that younger audiences are more interested in special offers, the entertainment factor and exclusive information within advertising, says the report. For 45-54 year olds however, ads need to be more relevant and useful to make an impact. And, while money off particularly appeals to 18-35 year olds, with the economy expected to be slow, people of all ages are more likely to be looking for advertising that offers money off. In each case, and for the other age groups in the survey, consumers want online advertisers to understand their needs and devise their creative executions accordingly.

http://www.mediapost.com/

Twitter Confirms Paid Pro Accounts On The Way – For those of you who have always wanted more out of Twitter from a marketing perspective, it looks like your wish has been answered…for a fee.  While Twitter will always offer free accounts to corporate users, these new ‘Pro’ accounts would include enhanced features which, at this time are still unknown.  However, we can speculate that authentication and more powerful tracking / metrics are high on the list.

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Expedia Preps Passport Ads – An interesting read from the Behavioral Insider with Doug Miller, vice-president of global media solutions at Expedia.  The summary is that Expedia knows a lot about consumer purchasing patterns prior to the actual conversion of purchasing a flight or booking a hotel room.  Taking that knowledge, they can offer advertisers the opportunity to place their message in front of the consumer at a higher point in the travel planning funnel.  Rather than being the ad on the ‘thinking’ screen of a flight search, based on previous actions, you are now placing your ad in front of the consumer on local hotel review site.

Plus, according to the research above, if that ad is relevant and offers a discount, the clicks should come rolling in.

http://www.mediapost.com/

Trident Finds It Hard to Go Viral

Sorry Jerry, we just don't care about you and your teeth.

Some brands, like Dove soap and Levi’s jeans, have created a lot of buzz with online videos so compelling that millions of people shared them with friends or posted them to their favorite Web sites. But so-called viral marketing is a tricky business, as is clear from the campaign for a new Trident gum touted for its ability to strengthen and rebuild teeth.

Trident launched the product in May with a conventional ad campaign. Then, two months ago, seeking to make a splash with Web-savvy young people, it started planting online videos that featured fictional brothers Jerry and Wendell Tucker from rural North Carolina, testing the strength of Jerry’s teeth.  >>Full Story

Thoughts// First, kudos to Traci for spotting this article on the Wall Street Journal last week.  The story is an excellent tale of a viral campaign that never went viral.

Why?

Because you don’t create viral campaigns!

Anyway, the story talks about how Trident seeded specific websites and blogs with videos of two North Carolina brothers who have amazingly strong teeth.  Specifically, seeded the content by ‘sent emails to dental hygienists and to bloggers who are fans of Mr. Mull.‘  First impression, does that seem odd to anyone else?  Trying to launch your viral campaign to dental hygienists and Martin Mull bloggers?  We know it is gum, but still, odd.

Then, Trident or more accurately, the ad agency, created a show and accompanying website titled, ‘That’s Not Fake,’ about a fake, video exposing show (I know, ironic! Probably the point, but we missed it) that features the brothers, yada, yada, turns out he was chewing Trident the whole time. Fail.

The highlight here is that while the site is obviously not legitimate, it is presented and pushed as a real site and TV show.  No where on the site does it mention that this is really paid for by Trident gum.  Regardless of what you think about the videos, execution, etc., I think the real issue here is that most people are not falling for this ‘show’ and just don’t care.  Seriously, 8-10 videos about teeth and gum? Who is going to watch all of that?

Better solution, sponsor any and all funny, humorous or scary videos relating to people either having or not having strong teeth on YouTube.  Dad gets hit in mouth with baseball by son, overlay ad reads ‘Good thing he was chewing Trident gum this morning.’ Done, campaign launched, success, I am heading home.

For readers of the Travel 2.0 blog, how does this relate back to travel?  Well, in some really basic terms:

• Don’t over think or overspend on interactive/social/viral campaigns.
• Anytime your agency says the word ‘viral,’ you should be concerned.
• Just because it can be done (an online show with Martin Mull), does not mean it should be done.

Now, let’s see if we can get this post to go viral.

Who is REALLY Clicking on My Ads?!

Who's clicking on my Ads?!

17.1% of all clickthroughs on web advertising are the result of click fraud – the act of clicking on a web ad to artificially increase its click-through rate – according to the latest report from Click Forensics, a company that specializes in monitoring and preventing internet crime. The level of clickfraud is the highest the company has seen since it started monitoring for it in 2006, dashing our hopes that it might hold steady in 2008. The company recorded a rate of 16.3% in Q1 2008. >>Full Story

Thoughts// As the economy sours and marketers pour their limited dollars into search marketing, this study from Click Forensics gives us pause.   Perhaps even more disturbing is that these rates aren’t just driven up by an unscrupulous competitor clicking surreptitiously on your ads; fraud committed by “bots” appear to be at an all time high—responsible for 31.4 percent of the fraud—making detection extremely difficult.

To get further insight into how to maximize the effectiveness of search advertising and to best monitor for click fraud, I recently talked to John McPhee, “search guru in travel verticals” for Anvil Media, a Portland based search engine marketing agency.

In Anvil’s experience working with travel industry clients, how prevalent is click fraud in this industry?
From Anvil’s experience, we haven’t seen any more click fraud in the travel industry than other industries. The numbers on click fraud don’t lie, it’s happening, but honestly, it’s not something that we lose sleep over as we constantly monitor PPC data via AdWords reports and Google Analytics for all of our clients. If we see that something is out of whack, we dig deeper to determine the cause and if click fraud is a likely candidate, we follow up (with Google, Yahoo or MSN) appropriately.

If almost a third of clicks on content networks such as AdSense are fraudulent, is it worth my investment?
In order to determine if advertising on Google’s Content Network is worth your investment, you need to first set goals for the campaign. If you are focusing on branding efforts through the content network, you’ll be more concerned about impressions, but if you have found niche sites that drive targeted visitors (that convert) and you’re meeting your cost/conversion or ROI goals, I think it’s definitely worth the investment. As long as you are seeing a positive return, I see no reason not to continue using these advertising networks. To quote Seth Godin, “If your ads work and you are seeing a higher profit than cost, why not keep running them?”

For those of us who’re monitoring our own search campaigns, what tools can we use to be vigilant against fraud?
As I mentioned previously, being diligent and monitoring your campaigns within AdWords and Analytics for any odd fluctuations (lower conversion rates & higher cost/conversions suddenly happening out of nowhere) or poorly performing sites (from the content network) is the best/most effective approach for Anvil.

Google AdWords has a Placement report that allows marketers to easily review performance from AdSense sites. If you see sites performing poorly, it’s as simple as pausing your ads on those sites. Also, if you feel your ads are appearing on a site that isn’t driving quality traffic, you have the ability to include them in the negative sites feature (works just like negative keywords) so your ads no longer appear on these low quality sites.

For marketers that don’t have the time to monitor their stats on an hourly/daily basis, a fraud detection tool may help but I’m not entirely sold on its necessity as long as you manage to your goals. With that said, I haven’t personally used any click fraud monitoring tools; however, I did find a pretty comprehensive list: http://www.adwordsadsensetools.com/-Click-Fraud-Monitoring-Detection-.html.

We couldn’t agree with John more!  As we’ve said many times on this blog, the most effective metric for the success of your online campaigns (both PPC and display) is not the ubiquitous click-thru rate but the conversions (or engagement).  Watch what your clickers are doing and you’ll be killing those bots!

Travel Trends – Transmoflection & Vancouver 2010, Jumbo Hostel, Social Network Demographics

Transmoflection in action.

Transmoflection & Vancouver 2010 – From our neighbors to the north comes the idea of Transmoflection, an interesting look into the development of the Vancouver 2010, well, look.  Certainly in the category of a major tourism event, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver will drench the city in Olympic signs, banners, murals, etc and in this case, they look pretty good.  A timeless design…perhaps not, there are some trendy elements, but it does seem to capture the spirit and harmony of the city in a gorgeous graphical execution.  Plus, we love new buzz words.
http://www.vancouver2010.com/

Jumbo Hostel – Let’s call this one recycling technology.  Those of you who are regulars know that Mo and I support not only a green philosophy, but one of sustainable tourism.  Oscar Diös, who we will assume is Swedish, saw an opportunity in a run-down 747 and turned it into a hostel at the Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.  Pictures are here. That’s right, a full-size, intact 747 that you can spend the night in…and no, it does not fly anymore.  Fantastic.  When is the next travel conference in Stockholm?
http://www.jumbohostel.com/

Social Network Demographics – From the minds at Pew Internet, via eMarketer, new stats on social networking demographics.  Again, if you don’t already subscribe to or routinely visit Pew Internet, you need to.

Some good data in there.  However, a final thought from eMarketer needs to be corrected:

“The ongoing headache for marketers is that social networking is such a powerful consumer activity, but incredibly challenging as a marketing medium,” said Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer.

As we have spoken about at length on the Travel 2.0 blog, marketing is difficult if not nearly impossible on social networks. The key being that social networks are a communication platform, therefore, you need to communicate with members, not market to them.

So, substitute the word ‘communication’ for ‘marketing’ and your social networking strategy should work out much better.
http://www.emarketer.com/

New Year’s Resolutions…I Will.

Ah, the new year.  Parties, football, vacation…good times.  Oh, and resolutions.  No, we are not talking about your personal, ‘stop spending so much time on my Blackberry’ resolution, but your interactive, business and professional resolutions.

As the economy continues to slow and the constant stream of negative news does nothing to boost our hopes of a quick turnaround, how can you protect and even grow your brand, reputation and marketing platform in 2009?

Our 7 interactive resolutions should help to answer that question.  Save them, email them to your peers or print them out and hang them on your wall.

1. I will project a positive and upbeat image for my brand / product, reminding consumers why they trust us.
2. I will reconnect and indulge my already loyal consumers…email list members, subscribers, requestors, etc…they have shown an interest in my brand / product and I need to offer them something in return.
3. I will learn to listen and communicate with my consumers using the interactive tools they are comfortable with…social networks, blogs, Twitter, SMS, etc.
4. I will test and re-test my creative, targeting and messaging, holding my vendors or ad agency accountable for under-performing ads.
5. I will focus more attention and resources on ensuring that my search engine strategy, both SEO and SEM, is delivering maximum results.
6. I will look beyond the simple metrics associated with my online campaigns or website and determine my ‘engagement’ metrics…the data that reveals insight into how my consumers are interacting with my online presence.
7. I will take advantage of this opportunity to reevaluate our position in the marketplace…can we offer a more valuable, useful or desirable service, across a variety of interactive platforms, to our consumers.

There you go, our 7, but we are quite sure there are a lot more.  What do you think?  What are your resolutions for the new year?

Let us know in the comments section.

Here’s to a positive and prosperous 2009.